


A Second Chance

by freakface



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Anyways, Death, Enjoy!, Gen, Guilt, Pain, SII augmentation procedures, Sorrow, Suffering, THEY DESERVE IT, Wow man, Yikes, a little angsty, also my 2nd halo fanfic, and i shall do my best to help provide more, but only minor unnamed characters so dont worry, i love them, it's just the worst, my red team babies, poor babies, red team brotp for life yo, the are in desperate need of more content, this just keeps getting better and better!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freakface/pseuds/freakface
Summary: Red Team origin story.Jerome never stopped fighting; he just chose to fight for something else.
Relationships: jerome-092 & Alice-130 & Douglas-042
Kudos: 5





	A Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on https://kyroos.tumblr.com/post/640670261702737920/a-second-chance

A few years had gone since Jerome woke up in an unfamiliar bed in an unknown facility on a planet called Reach, and a woman---Dr. Halsey---had gathered him and a big bunch of other kids his age in a room and told them that they were to become the protectors of humanity and Earth and all her colonies. Him and 74 other candidates were to be trained to become soldiers of the UNSC.

He’d resisted. Others had as well. Some tried to escape. Jerome tried to escape many times despite knowing Mendez and the other DIs would always be waiting for him, always using more physical force and different tactics to throw him off from attempting again each time. He refused to be intimidated, though, and there were recurring instances where his violence towards the DIs that tried to stop him exceeded way past the limits that other trainees generally didn’t dare attempt to reach. He’d managed to even send a few to the infirmary with injuries that required immediate medical attention. He swore to himself that he would never stop fighting.

However, he eventually came to accept this new life, this new responsibility that was put on him. There were people---Dr. Halsey foremost---who held faith in him. Who believed he was capable of so much more, and what if he was? He didn’t stop fighting, no---he just chose to fight for something else, and in the last months he’d risen quickly among the top candidates.

In the absence of his real family back on Minister, he’d become close and forged a friendship with some of the other trainees, and eventually they became a team---something like family---most of them no longer remembered the family they’d originally come from. They became Red Team, with Jerome as team leader.

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During a game of Capture the Flag, Jerome and his team faced off against another team in which a certain trainee, Douglas-042, was a member of.

During one of the rounds he’d advanced for Jerome but Jerome had evaded his blows and moves and beaten him, and advancing further Red Team ultimately won the game. The anger that he’d seen blazing in 042’s eyes was something he would never forget. The anger was familiar. He’d felt that same anger himself. It is still there, seething around inside him but he has control over it. Something that 042 yet had seemed to master.

Jerome had watched him sometime afterwards, and it quickly came clear that it was a serious issue of 042 that he struggled to fix and control, and was often berated by Mendez and the other DIs for it.

_You have to learn how to control it,_ Jerome told him once during lunch, after Douglas’ and his team lost another game. It was the first words he said to him. _You need to adapt sooner or later. Like I did._

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Jerome-092 remembered pain---unexplainable pain, and crying and screaming as his limbs thrashed around and he tried to move, tried to escape. And then nothing.

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He woke up high on painkillers; mind fuzzy, body throbbing with pain, skin dry and cold, insides burning like a blazing fire. He couldn’t breathe. Soon there were doctors and nurses all around him.

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_Washout._ That was what they had called him. _You have been washed out of the program._

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_You failed._

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They told him his body had rejected the augmentation procedures but that he was lucky. He survived.

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Many others didn’t. Jerome was the only member of his team who’d survived. His friends---people he’d known as family---were dead. Their deaths, slow and painful.

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Gone.

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A knife twisted its way into his heart and he felt broken.

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They told him the procedures had crippled him but that he was lucky.

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There were others who’d been crippled in worse ways than he had. Those who barely looked human anymore. The knife twisted deeper and waves of guilt, sorrow, anger---emotions Jerome couldn’t distinguish---hit him on and on.

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33 survivors fit for duty. 30 dead. 12 crippled, Jerome included, and it all left him with a great sense of failure, guilt of a survivor, a soul and body shattered and wasted.

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He’d accepted the new turn of events of being raised and trained as a soldier. He never imagined that something inevitable would happen to render him unfit for that purpose after fully committing his life to it.

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He went into rehabilitation and a few weeks went by which were spent performing different types of exercises, scheduled for several medical appointments, undergoing therapy sessions and more, all as part of a scheme created to help him recover from the failed augmentations.

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One day Chief Mendez had come to speak to him, curious of how he was holding up. Jerome had told the Chief the truth but didn’t express the sense of guilt and failure he was constantly tortured by. The Chief had nodded in response and told him his rehabilitation was going well. So well, he told him that he would be given a second chance.

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A second chance.

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A second chance to become a soldier, a second chance to become a Spartan. Become what he had spent his life since he was six training for. Jerome could hardly believe it, mostly because he feared it was false hope. Mendez explained to him that his failed augmentations hadn’t crippled him as severely as it had for others, and that the progress of his rehabilitation had been shown promising enough for a second attempt.

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A second chance; he’d do anything for that. If it meant that he had to be re-trained and suffer through re-augmentations, then so be it. He’d dishonor his dead and crippled comrades if he didn’t take it.

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Mendez had also told him that he wouldn’t be the only one. There were others like him who would be given a second chance. Jerome felt a bit uneasy by that. It still felt like only days had gone since he’d lost his friends---his whole team, and their deaths were still fresh in his mind. But perhaps building up a new team would give him something else to occupy his mind with.

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It was during his first day of the retraining in one of the facilities that he had been joined by another trainee. One like him, who’d failed the augmentations but been given a second chance.

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Jerome immediately recognized Douglas-042.

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His gait was still a little stiff from the failed procedures despite having been through rehabilitation like Jerome, and his skin was paler than ever. His jaw was clenched and Jerome suspected he was still in some pain; Jerome’s own bones still ached and his mind was a little dizzy sometimes.

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“Hey,” he greeted him.

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“Hey,” Douglas greeted back, his gruff voice carrying a sense of wariness of the current situation. 

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“Jerome-Zero-Nine-Two,” Jerome introduced himself. He didn’t know if Douglas recognized him; it had been a long time since their first interaction when Jerome had offered his advice. And the air was tense with uncertainty and uneasiness. Just something small and simple to tone it down, maybe.

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“Douglas-Zero-Four-Two,” he replied curtly, scratching his neck. Jerome scratched his arms, the silence pressuring in on them.

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They remained quiet for just a few minutes when another trainee joined them. Alice-130.

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Jerome recognized her as one of the most capable and determined trainees he’d ever faced off against in training. 130 had quickly become known among the 75 of them as being one of the few who didn’t seem as traumatized by the sudden change in their lives like many others were.

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Rather, she seemed to thrive on it. The hard and difficult training had been a series of seemingly impossible challenges for all of them, but 130 had been as determined as always to succeed, seemingly taking each lesson she was taught to the heart. Jerome held no doubt that out of the three of them, she’d been first to embrace the new path presented in her life while Jerome had whole-heartedly refused to accept it and Douglas had struggled with the grave differences his new life presented in contrast to his earlier.

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She was driven by her yearning for action and lived for the combat and challenges she faced. Never one to be driven and blinded by anger.

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He admired her for that.

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They introduced themselves to her and she did the same, before things went quiet again. The air was still as tense as before.

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“So…” Douglas tried but quickly trailed off. None of them really knew what to say or do. It was scary to believe that they’d been given a second chance when the program had labeled them as washouts.

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But they had that in common. They were washouts, who failed the augmentations, who were given a second chance while wondering what had gone wrong, why they failed the first time, why they survived when so many others of them didn't. It wasn’t fair.

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Life hardly ever was.

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Jerome fiddled with his fingers on his arm. The three of them would supposedly become the new composition of Red Team, and he would again serve as team leader. He better get comfortable leading a team consisting of members he hardly knew.

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“They gave us a second chance,” he began carefully, eyeing Alice and Douglas, attempting to draw out a response from either of them to better understand their take on the situation.

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“Neither of us wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case,” Alice replied hesitantly, her strained voice betraying the hopeful excitement glimmering in her green eyes.

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Jerome took a deep breath; at least he wasn’t alone in this.

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_This **had** to be a second chance._

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He’d lost people he’d considered family and he missed them every day dearly. The knife was there again and twisted into his heart. There was pain and guilt. Douglas and Alice probably felt the same. They’d lost something as well. The three of them had been through the same events with similar losses. The three of them were the same.

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_It **was** a second chance._

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“Yeah,” Douglas said warily after a moment, then quickly cleared his throat and spoke again, this time with more confidence and optimism. “It has to be.”

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“Despite everything,” Alice continued, her voice a little stronger.

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Jerome nodded. They hardly knew each other; they were still in pain but despite everything they have a second chance here. They should take it.

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“A second chance,” Alice voiced his thoughts. “I’d take it.”

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“Yeah, me too,” Douglas said in agreement and Jerome nodded his. A second chance.

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Alice let out a breath and when she spoke next her voice didn’t sound as strained as before, her tone more that of confidence and determination. “Then let’s make sure we make it count.”

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_Make it count._ A second chance to create something for what each of them had lost.

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_Don’t waste it._

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Jerome no longer felt as wasted as he did before.

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“Agreed,” Douglas replied, eyes shining now with the same determination and he rolled his shoulders a bit to loosen them up. “I’d say we better get started then, eh?”

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Alice nodded at his proposal, challenge burning in her eyes.

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Jerome looked at them. Each of them had suffered and lost much but it didn’t mean it was the end of things. They didn’t know each other well, but that would change.

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It was a new beginning, maybe.

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“Yes,” he said, loud and clear with confidence. _A second chance for something new._ “Let’s get started.”

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**Author's Note:**

> i love red team. i can't say that enough.
> 
> any kind of appreciation is appreciated!


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